Page 378 - Jarvis & Wright: Jamaica Display to RPSL

Jamaica Registration: Money Letter, 1836.

Money Letter entire from Kingston to May Hill, 1836.
Letters had to be inscribed Money Letter. Post Offices were to enter them in their Despatch Books
and Bag Dockets. As a forerunner of the system of registration numbers these entries may have
been numbered, but of the five money letters shown here the numbers were written on only three.
There is no apparent pattern; the two without numbers are one from Kingston and one from Porus.
This one is No. 26. It is not known whether the series of numbers at each office restarted from 1 each
day, as was later the case for manuscript registration numbers. At Kingston there may have been as
many as 26 money letters in a day.
Charged 1s postage and 10d money letter charge.

The sender wrote inside:
“ Kingston 28 August 1836.”
“… I now beg leave to enclose to you 59-7-6…together with a receipt.”
and on the outside:
“Money Letter”.

The post office marked:
the number of the money letter, presumably as recorded in the Despatch Book: No. 26; and
the rate: 1/10, made up of:
· 2 x 6d = 1s postage from Kingston to May Hill, 63 miles, the rate for a double letter, because the
enclosed receipt was treated as an enclosure but the money was not, being separately charged;
and
· the money letter fee of 10d.
Kingston: 27 August 1836 [although the inside of the letter is dated 28 August].